It makes sense to want a following, but engagement is not a guarantee, because said engagement is done by people who follow content as a choice and not as an obligation. If they like a story is up to them.
Is fair to ask for visibility, but that in itself will not guarantee results.
I wanna be fair with you darth, you’re stats are normally decently cited but this time you’ve irked me a bit
I noticed you used your “total revenue” which includes ink gifted to you. Now I hate to be a negative Nancy but tapas really dosn’t and shouldn’t care about your ink revenue, especially when inksgiving is on the table.
There’s plenty of people I know who can make 20 to 50$ in ink revenue because they’re well known in the >creator< community. So they can make a lot of money during inksgiving- problem is we also don’t know how much they are >spending< during inksgiving. As that event tends to be a give a little get a little, your more likely to spend more money on inksgiving then you receive unless your already in the 2000 sub tier.
Now for an example I’m gonna use my own stats here
My total revenue is 59.78$
Not anything compared to your 200$ but as a hobbyist who dose this for herself and makes most of her money through nsfw commissions- I’m pretty proud of it. But now let’s look at my AD revenue
$5.58
Oof a much smaller amount. Yet this is the amount tapas should be looking at, because this is the amount that matters. Tapas is not getting payed by you through Patreon. YouTube dose not boost the people who have the most patreons on their page- they boost the people who have the most >veiws< and make the most >ad revenue< for them. Why? Because those are the people who are actually paying YouTube. They, like tapas needs to make their investors happy. This is just how companies work. Unless you’re getting a lot of Veiw (not audience >views< ) and these people are not willing to turn off their ad blockers for you, then these platforms really don’t have a need to invest in you. It’s sad but it’s what business is.
I agree that we’re loosing a lot of ground with visibility for the little guy but when you put down “fresh” and “community picks” because one or two of the entires are not “polished” then it’s your own loss
The original one punch man is not a “polished” comic. And look where it is now. So it’s really a self fufilling proficiency that were working with. Either you allow some unpolished things to seep through so everyone can get in, or you start having vip codes.
The problem I’m seeing is that there is still a ladder.... but it’s a ladder that can only be climded if your willing to play the game. I have seen PLENTY of artist and creators that made comics years ago with under 100 subs that now make comics with over 10000 subs. You wanna know what happen? They didn’t get more “polished” they just went to the romance and BL genre. Cause that’s where the money and veiws are.
As an authors of Bl genre i 'm saying that , please don't change your story to Bl or romance if that's not what you like to draw it's surely reflect on your art and story!
This is true and I have not contested this.
We are agreed on this as well. It seems we are at a misunderstanding.
...
Allow me to explain my thinking:
The only means by which one achieves engagement is through sheer "volume of eyeballs". Marketers will talk about "conversion funnels" - at the easiest-to-get end there is the 'impression' - a single view by one person. At the hardest-to-get end is the paying customer, or whatever goal it is that you want to achieve. A certain percentage of impressions will 'funnel down' between each level - this is the 'conversion rate'. For example, the average conversion rate for Facebook ads is apparently 9.21%.
The conversion funnel may have any number of steps in it (though obviously shorter is better) until eventually a very small number become paying customers, or whatever the highest goal you want to achieve is.
In the end then, if engagement is your goal, it is a simple numbers game to get as many impressions as possible, so that as many as possible 'funnel down' into people who say, click and read nothing, which funnels down to people who stay to read, which funnels down into people who become 'fans'.
Marketers draw conversion funnel diagrams so they can work out which steps 'on the road' to a paying customer/to some other goal aren't proving persuasive enough.
You are right - impressions are no guarantee of achieving a higher goal. But, they're an essential first step.
This is why I have proposed a solution that rewards impressions to people who work hard, where popularity metrics have the opposite effect - they make a person descend down an 'Undiscovered' ranking. It prioritises those comics that have no functional funnel at all, because no one is entering full stop. As a high placement in the Undiscovered ranking rewards a series with impressions and various metrics of popularity, a funnel forms, word of mouth (the single most important form of impression there is) begins to spread, and a person who has worked hard with no reward is helped along their way.
I see why you are frustrated, you put a lot of time \ money in your project, I also understood that you know your comics by heart and that you are confident to be able to bring back to Tapas. :
So I think you should submit your project to them as premium comics and see if your project is accepted ^^
This can only be beneficial on the one hand you will have real feedback from the staff and therefore from a professional in this field and on the other, regardless of the answer, you can either be accepted or improve what is wrong 
Just wanted to chime in -- I think you misunderstood what Darth was saying (or replied to the wrong person). 
Darth is already a professional in this field: more of a veteran at this point. Their post was more or less about the general atmosphere around these types of threads, as well as the conflicting results and responses that come with them.
hooo i'm so sorry !!! English is not my first language i tends to misunderstood !
But If she is an professional why isn't she able to live from it ?
( i don't wanna be rude or aything)
i just thought it would be a good idea if he wanted more views and, if the views are with the premium comics then become a premium comic ?
Firstly, not a he, easy mistake, I'm a she.
I do make my living as a writer, games designer and artist for a kids edutainment company, which is my day job while I try to launch independent IP comics. Prior to this, I worked as a freelance comic artist, illustrator and games artist, with clients including Nintendo, the BBC and Square-Enix, but I was tired of always working on other people's IP full time and never having any time for original works, so I went into working part time as an employee while the rest of the time I develop my own original works.
In my country, the UK, launching new IP is pretty hard because we have comparatively few publishers who do it (most comics produced here are based on existing IP) so I had hoped to build an online following on Tapas, which friends had recommended to me. My readership is growing, but not as fast as I'd hoped, particularly since the algorithm changes last year. This is why I want Tapas to improve visibility for free to read works, to make this more viable. Tapas requires pitches for premium to have 2000 subscribers and to be in longscroll format, or to be pitched as more like a group project for studio development, so it's not as simple as just pitching there.
I am working on a pitch, but not for Tapas. There's a big demand for print comics for children right now, so I am already making plans assuming Tapas may not work out as a place for me to make money on my original work, but print might.
And as I suspected, most of the new ones are made by people who just joined this March, or 2021 at least. xD
Like I said in my first reply way up in the thread, a lot of these promo threads are just made by new creators excited to share their work and find new things to read. They may think coming here to the forums is the best way to start networking, and it can be! I've seen a lot of "Hey I'm new here, just wanted to meet fellow creators and share my work" threads that get some replies. So it can be beneficial for them, even if it means it clutters up the forum for us veterans.
@Eyre If you would like to make a new topic with your Undiscovered idea, I won't stop you! Usually it's easier for staff to see and reply to specific points if they aren't buried under a mountain of other replies in a thread not specifically tailored for it.
Thank you!
I came up with the idea while reading this thread, and have mentioned it in response to a few people now, in the hope of giving folks with different views something to agree on, but also in the hope that people would challenge the idea and point out its flaws.
If people are interested, I'll definitely put together a feature suggestion thread together with a more in-depth analysis of both the business and technical implications. But, it would be good to know if folks are actually interested in seeing that - would they contribute to the thread to voice their support, for example?
Or, if anyone has any suggestions for that thread/analysis?
I realise suggestions for the suggestion may seem extreme, but I want to present it well, taking into account as many views as possible, first off so that I can judge whether it would be worth my time making the suggestion at all, but also hopefully if I do go ahead and make the suggestion, I want to give it the best possible chance of being seen and respected.
As a business owner and a developer myself I take the Tapas' team's time very seriously, and wouldn't want to waste their time with what you'll have noticed is quite a wordy writing style. But also I wouldn't want to ruin the chances of anyone who could do a better job suggesting it.
Say if in three years time someone makes the same suggestion after mine is a complete disaster, the first reaction that person's going to get it "oh you mean like that idiot from three years ago suggested that we completely dismissed?" when actually they might have a point.
So, while I appreciate that you "won't stop" me, I think more needs to happen before I make a suggestion.
First off for example, this thread is laden with tension and misunderstanding, and if my suggestion is worth anything at all it should at least be able to alleviate that and bring people together in agreement.
ho right ! sorry for the he ^^ i'm sorry just wanted to help you i didn't mean to be rude or anything 
Yeah its weird I don't blame just those who are making the threads, people want to get their comic and work out there so it's all understandable; I feel like others have said, it goes with Tapas needing to highlight more work that isn't like those that are presented within the featured or originals section.
I think following what lesser known web comic sites have done could be a viable solution, (ex. ComicFury) where they have pages upon pages of highlighting works from lesser known creators. If Tapas did this however it could possibly lead to more growth for alot of series due to having more viewership than some of those lesser known sites.
That could work, think the only issue is splitting the brand could be a disservice to the lesser known works. There is a chance more people whom solely read would stay on Tapas and not move to Tapastry.
This is great, but not only do both brands have atrocious SEO, but Tapastry so far has just been used as a never-ending hashtag party to promote Tapas itself, more than any actual comics/novels.
It's like how lots of newcomers to Webtoon don't know that 'CANVAS' means 'independent' and assume there's no difference because they've no idea what 'CANVAS' is supposed to mean. Tapas at least does us the honour of placing Premium alongside its other series in search results without some weird bit of jargon (with equally bad SEO) to separate them.
Here's my opinion:
I don't think tapas needs to promote more community comics or less premium comics. I think tapas need a definitive way of knowing which comics are free and which are premiums.
The app front page is currently all over the place. Community comics and premium comics are mixed together is some places which might make new readers stop checking other comics in a particular space like "staff picks" because the first one they checked is premium. Specially when they don't have money. So why bother check the rest, all of them must be premium if the first one I saw in this section is premium right?
I saw a lot of readers complain why tapas doesn't offer free comics in the app review section in the app store. So a lot of potential new reader don't realize that tapas offers 2 fronts of comics and novels. Both payed and completely free generated by users.
I did this visual overview of tapas front page so you can see what I mean:
I fully get your point and we did had one reader here at the forum trying to address this. Mostly because they followed on Twitter and clicked on new stuff they were promoting only to find out that this new series become paid after X- episodes without telling this in the beginning. So they could not found out where the free comics where when the "free" eventual become paid.
Sorry cant find that post, but it is here somewhere.
Anyway the free sections are not that hide-a-way. It is here
I've mostly left this thread since I'm generally happy with my Tapas experience, and I'm a novelist and this has become about comics (or always was about comics). What I find most interesting in @Capsona long scroll of the front page is that there is ONE SINGLE section out of all of those sections with visible novels. EVERYTHING else is for comics. Free or not. (If you don't count the "novel to comic" which is still mainly advertising comics...)
I, however, am not going to complain, because one of the three visible novels is mine. I've also been shared twice using the Tapastry hashtag, so I know it does happen. I'm on Instagram, though, not Twitter, so that probably helps.
I'm definitely not "YAY TAPAS" or "BOO COMIC ARTISTS" and I think many of these issues are completely valid. I knew Tapas was a comic place before I came. I was just trolling and thought how obvious the complete lack of visible novels was on that screenshot. ^^ Just to interject a little novelist perspective into the mix.
closed Sep 22, '22
